Guild Wars 2

1. Get Toughness or Vitality Gear. (This is the single most important step, without health or armor you will melt, this is pretty much 101 against all classes.)

2. Use Dodge/Stun Breaker: Trait for them, there are many classes who have “When you take more then 20% of damage——” Or “When you go below 25% health..” abuse these traits, use your dodge when you think about it.

3. Shut up and listen: All thieves abilities have a unique sound, most of the time you can guess what thieves do or are going to jump you JUST by listening to the sound of there abilities, many people have the sound option off and don’t realize this little secret, this is why most thief veterans have no problem taking down other thieves, I KNOW when your going to steal me… (Can you believe most self-claimed “Elite” players play with there sound off? LOL!)

4. Be Aggressive: sees thief… HES KILLING HER.. THEN HES GONNA KILL ME… OH MY GOOOOOOD…. Thieves have the hardest time out of any class finishing off an opponent, especially backstab thieves due to low hitpoints, low armor, and little endurance regeneration, if you see a friend downed by a thief, immediately rush to that person and autoattack the air, watch your combat log for hits.

5. AOE the ground under your feet: Thieves MUST be in melee range to hurt you effectively, no matter what skill they have, pistol/pistol is worthless, if you successfully counter a thief, Immediately run around in circles and AOE the ground under your feet, this is the WORST possible thing you can do to a thief, almost all of our abilities require flanking.

6. Attack the Air: Most players stand around when they see me go invisible, ATTACK THE AIR, I’M USUALLY behind your back, Turn around and keep swinging, even if you don’t think your hitting me, I die in 2-3 autoattacks.

7. Drop that great sword and use weapons thieves are not familiar with: Part of a thieves life is learning what sounds weapons makes when they attack us and what animations they have, this is because a thief in “pve” dies if we don’t time our dodges properly, this may make us a bit more powerful then other classes just mindset wise because we “must” learn to dodge properly at level 5, whilst other classes don’t really have to learn to dodge at all until level 80, thieves must learn the animations/sounds of attacks/and weapon choices of every class he fights against to properly counter it, this means we have almost no idea how to counter “The Odd Balls” Yes, i’m looking at you Axe/Mace Warrior…

Love the Troll 2 reference.
You won’t have any problems killing my lousy thief.

I like this post. There’s only one problem…

Thief: Get zerk gear. Get good at Steal+CnD+Backstab. Win. Against bunkers, use SB and leave.

Other classes: Learn all the thief skills. Listen for thief. Watch thief at all times. Use different/odd weapons. Use AoEs. Swing wildly at the air. Use stun-breakers. Dodge more. Build differently. Etc, etc, etc.

But you know, other than that, good post.

I know, its amazing how people stand still after being CnDed.
Dont even bother bother to run or side step, just turn around slowly waiting for me to reappear infront of them.

This is a good post.
and point #7 is funny cause its true.

1. Everybody but Thieves, huh? Also, false, the difference of a few thousand helth is one heartseeker.

2. So you want people to trait exclusively to counter Thieves? And false again, not all classes have these traits and some of these don’t even increase defense in any meaningful way. Dodging doesn’t work against invisible enemies and against Steal into CnD+BS, remember than evading a BS doesn’t bring a Thief out of stealth, he can run at you and spam BS, even double dodge won’t grant you enough evasion time to outlast a 4s stealth.

3. Wow. Should we also learn to open our chakras and release our ki to slow down time? Seriously, listen to sounds? In a chaotic PvP environment, sounds that indicate that attack is already in progress and you won’t be able to dodge in time with lag anyway, even if you somehow hear it? And even if you heard and evaded once, that’s not gonna help you.

4. False. Stealth stomp is much better. Thieves can disengage and escape attacks extremely well, focusing one down is not a simple matter and is going to waste a lot of your time if you’re fighting a triple-dodge Thief or someone who will just stealth and WAIT for you to switch targets, then attack. CnD into HiS into Black Powder results in a lot of stealth time that can be used defensively.

5. Too bad damage reveal Thieves. You hit him for 2k, he instagibs you a fraction of a second later. Not to mention that it’s easy to time attacks well when you’re freaking invisible.

6. False. You don’t die in 2-3 AAs. And hey, didn’t you advice to spec defensively? A defensive GS Warrior hits for 600 with AAs. BS Thieves have 12-19k HP not 3-4k, that’s without any investment in Acrobatics, just use Knight’s Amulet/Zerker Jewel vs Zerker/Zerker, you don’t lose a lot of damage and can still instagib targets. Swinging at air is useful, but it’s easy to maneuver out of range and come back to attack when the enemy is swinging the other direction.

7. Again, telling people to spec exclusively to counter Thieves. Warriors, for example, have only two truly offensive melee weapons, that’s GS and Axe. Guardian has two true offensive weapins – GS and Sword. Axe/Mace Warrior is not any different from the popular Axe/Shield Warrior and is more effective against Thieves due to Shield Block.

Edelweiss.9815:

1. Everybody but Thieves, huh? Also, false, the difference of a few thousand helth is one heartseeker.

2. So you want people to trait exclusively to counter Thieves? And false again, not all classes have these traits and some of these don’t even increase defense in any meaningful way. Dodging doesn’t work against invisible enemies and against Steal into CnD+BS, remember than evading a BS doesn’t bring a Thief out of stealth, he can run at you and spam BS, even double dodge won’t grant you enough evasion time to outlast a 4s stealth.

3. Wow. Should we also learn to open our chakras and release our ki to slow down time? Seriously, listen to sounds? In a chaotic PvP environment, sounds that indicate that attack is already in progress and you won’t be able to dodge in time with lag anyway, even if you somehow hear it? And even if you heard and evaded once, that’s not gonna help you.

4. False. Stealth stomp is much better. Thieves can disengage and escape attacks extremely well, focusing one down is not a simple matter and is going to waste a lot of your time if you’re fighting a triple-dodge Thief or someone who will just stealth and WAIT for you to switch targets, then attack. CnD into HiS into Black Powder results in a lot of stealth time that can be used defensively.

5. Too bad damage reveal Thieves. You hit him for 2k, he instagibs you a fraction of a second later. Not to mention that it’s easy to time attacks well when you’re freaking invisible.

6. False. You don’t die in 2-3 AAs. And hey, didn’t you advice to spec defensively? A defensive GS Warrior hits for 600 with AAs. BS Thieves have 12-19k HP not 3-4k, that’s without any investment in Acrobatics, just use Knight’s Amulet/Zerker Jewel vs Zerker/Zerker, you don’t lose a lot of damage and can still instagib targets. Swinging at air is useful, but it’s easy to maneuver out of range and come back to attack when the enemy is swinging the other direction.

7. Again, telling people to spec exclusively to counter Thieves. Warriors, for example, have only two truly offensive melee weapons, that’s GS and Axe. Guardian has two true offensive weapins – GS and Sword. Axe/Mace Warrior is not any different from the popular Axe/Shield Warrior and is more effective against Thieves due to Shield Block.

I didn’t know learning the play styles of other professions and your own topped with learning how to dodge constitutes as speccing just to counter thieves.

I don’t know if you’ve ever played guildwars the first.
But back in those days, the mesmer had a very steep learning curve, not only did you have to learn your own profession but basically every other professions to learn how to counter them.

When to use Backfire, when to use diversion, watch for animations, when to use a rupt,, make sure you use diversion just as the targets spell is about to go off so they get disabled for 60 seconds.

Learning your own class and learning to counter other people is nothing new to guildwars the first or guildwars the second.

Edelweiss and Rizzy, you both make valid points.

1) Most of the OP’s original suggestion is just a general anti-burst strategy. The current meta is all about bursts to kill and bunkers to survive, it’s why you don’t see many pressure/condition builds around. Common sense for those that lack it. Not really thief specific.

2) Again, most of the traits mentioned aren’t really designed to counter leaves. They are just more anti-burst abilities.

3) With the new graphics and animations, many skills have distinct giveaways that alert you to what’s about to hit you in the face. However, I have to agree with Edelweiss on this one since in anything other than a 1v1, there’s going to be too much going on to notice one character that’s not your target, let alone their sounds.

4) This one too I also have to agree with Edelweiss. As long as the thief didn’t blow all his CDs and initiative, he can easily stealth and disappear.

5) This one goes to Rizzy and the OP. If you can survive the initial attack, and get a thief to reveal, then imo, the worst is over. Snares to slow him down and AoE for damage and even just area denial are going to keep you alive, or at least waste more of the thief’s time.

6) For this one, I think each of you are half-right. Edelweiss is correct that bunker builds probably won’t have enough damage to decisively hurt a thief so that they die or run. However, back-stab/CnD thieves are pretty predictable, so random AAing where they are expected to be should reveal them.

7) This one I’m inclined to agree with Edelweiss. changing something as major as weapon sets, just to counter 1/8 of the professions is extreme.

I hate when people act like thief is OP because you have to build to “counter it”. You’re not building to counter thief. You’re building to counter burst damage. This could be any class. Warrior, Mesmer, Guardian, Engineer, Necro, etc. Seriously, all classes have burst builds. These “counters” counter them all.

That’s like complaining that you have to build to stay alive or to counter condition damage builds. “Oh, so you want me to use a Condition removal utility and completely change my build so that I don’t die to a condition damage class?”

Yes. Yes, that’s exactly what we want you to do.